subject: What You Should Know about Lineman Tools [print this page] What You Should Know about Lineman Tools What You Should Know about Lineman Tools
I always liked that song by Glen Campbell, "Wichita Lineman," and have sung it many times while strummin' the old six-string. Boy, Glen sure took somewhat of a dive in later life but in his heyday he probably played guitar on more albums than anyone (even backing up the Beatles). He's always been an exceptional guitar player.
Being a 'lineman for the county' can be a pretty good job for those who enjoy that kind of work. Being afraid of heights (as many are) is, of course, a preclusion to working in this field. It's a job that attracts those who aren't afraid to take a risk as this can be a fairly dangerous occupation and workers lose their lives on the job every year.
Every lineman accumulates a wide assortment of lineman tools and it's critical that this equipment be of the best quality and kept in good repair. A 'hot stick', for example, which is used for grabbing live wires, can cause an electrocution if only slightly scratched in the wrong place. Fooling around with high voltage requires exceptional safety practices.
A lineman's truck will contain everything from crimping tools to emergency backup generators and high power lighting appliances. You can see them out working 24/7 and a utility worker of this sort needs to be flexible in his or her schedule as emergencies can happen at any time. When the lights go out the truck goes out... to fix the problem.
In the Philippines, where I live, 'brown-outs' are a common occurrence and happen weekly if not more. The power shuts off and you sit there and wait for it to be restored. The house becomes uncomfortably hot because the electric fans or air-con have shut down. At night it means bringing out the artificial lighting and we have candles and torches (flashlights).
Some of the wiring configurations put in place here by the electric company look like a big mess of spaghetti and when I first saw it I was surprised the system even works at all. But it does. Things aren't redundant here, so when a problem happens somewhere in the line everything downstream gets shut off until the problem's repaired. There is no secondary line to take over the load.
They've been replacing power converters and putting in new poles not far from here and we've been having brownouts every day for a couple of weeks now. Last week the well supplying our sub-division went dry and we had no house water for six days. Oh, the trade-offs we make to live in paradise!
